We are delighted to introduce Dr. Lena Arevaló as a faculty member in first NYRA School in Omics of Male Germ Cells. Lena is a young PI who recently founded her lab at the Department of Animal Reproduction INIA-CSIC in Madrid, Spain. Her research focuses on molecular processes of mammalian reproduction in an interdisciplinary approach at the interface between evolutionary biology and biomedicine. Lena´s expertise includes Transcriptomics, CRISPR and germline remodeling.
1. What was your first experience with Omics? Were you prepared for it or did you learn on the go?
My first experience was during my postdoc. My mentor was a new PI at the time and neither she nor I had any experience in analyzing RNAseq data. A big part of her project consisted of allele-specific RNAseq analyses. It was fun to figure it out by myself and my mentor was confident that I could do it. It took some time, but I learned it by myself. Once I did, every other type of analysis was easier to learn. I think learning by doing and by solving your own mistakes works very well in bioinformatics. So, I am by no means a bioinformatician and I only know how to do what I need to do, but I know that I can always learn more.
2. Can you name one situation when omics made a significant impact on your research?
Learning omics and being able to analyze and handle those huge amounts of data completely changed my idea of what I could study in molecular reproduction. It gave me ideas for approaching research questions and it opened collaborations with groups that needed omics data analyzed. So overall I can say it impacted a lot of situations and still is.
3. What challenges do you commonly face when interpreting omics data in the context of andrology?
On the male side of reproduction, the main challenge is separating the different cell types and stages of spermatogenesis, especially spermiogenesis stages. Testis tissue is so heterogenous that it is hard to interpret data taken from whole tissue samples. Sperm themselves are also a challenge of course. The RNA content of sperm is limited and unbiased methylome data for example are hard to get since the chromatin is packaged so tightly.
4. What omics tools do you consider essential for the future of male reproductive biology research?
I believe single cell (and bulk) RNAseq are crucial if we want to understand the processes of spermatogenesis and sperm maturation. Of course, methylome and genome-wide SNP discovery assays for fertility phenotype association studies are indispensable. But I think it is clear that male infertility is very complex and has multifaceted causes, so once it gets cheaper and more efficient, I think we will see more multi-omics approaches. The most important thing is that omics data are made openly available.
5. What advice would you give to young scientists facing omics for the first time?
Just dive in. It is frustrating and fun at the same time. Whenever you run into a problem with a script or the interpretation of the results, etc. just google it. You can find all the help you need in online bioinformatics communities. There is always someone who stood at the same roadblock before you. We will help you get started!
6. To whom would you recommend attending our school in February?
PhD students, postdocs and even starting PIs, anyone can learn it.